Timur Luchin, American Studies, gr 1

International Relations: An interdisciplinary Approach to Global issues.

The simplest definition of history is the story/study of the past, specifically how it relates to
humans1. This is a term use to cover broader spectrum of human life (the umbrella term) that relates
to past events as well as discover, collection, organization, and representation of information about
these events. History can also refer to the academic discipline which uses a narrative to examine and
analyze a sequence of past events and objectively determine the patterns of cause and effect 2.
Historical discussions still include the bias of historians, science, morality, individuals and society
and moral judgments in history.
In itself, the history is invaluable treasure that contains lessons of the past for the turbulent and
dynamic present, and for the uncertain future. Really, the history represents the laboratory of human
experience or database which can be accessed at any time by us. In Warrior Politics: Why Leadership
Demands a Pagan Ethos, author and journalist Robert Kaplan suggests that history is full of lessons
that contemporary leaders would be wise to reflect upon before making such decisions. In the early
pages of his essay, he announces his main theory: Ancient history, as I will demonstrate, is the surest
guide to what we are likely to face in the early decades of the twenty-first century. 3 For example,
Kaplan draws very interesting parallels between the Second Punic War in the War with Hannibal and
the Second World War, as both conflicts comprised much of what was considered the whole world, as
well as between the Peloponnesian War and the Cold War4. Studying history can help us develop
some literally "marketable skills5, but its study must not be reduced to utilitarian meaning.
In the development of the history of science, the histories of the individual/separate scientific
disciplines have played a significant role. First, had on the legitimacy and self-image of the
disciplines, improve content, general and particular directions. It synthesizes knowledge for many
fields and the different scientific directions. Second, the adaptability and mobility, that they have
shown when faced with the conceptual and methodological changes. Narratives matter stories that
make sense of realities of the world, that connect cause with effect that have a beginning, middle and
end.
Political science is the study of governments, public policies, political processes, systems, and
political behavior. Political science subfields include: political theory, political philosophy, political
1

http://archaeology.about.com/od/hterms/qt/history_definition.htm Retrieved on 15 March 2014.

Professor Alun Munslow History in Focus, Issue 2: What is History? 2001 University of London.
http://www.history.ac.uk/ihr/Focus/Whatishistory/munslow6.html Retrieved on 15 March 2014.
3
Robert Kaplan, Warrior Politics: Why Leadership Demands a Pagan Ethos, Vintage Books, New York, 2003, p. 14.
4
Robert Kaplan, op. cit., pp. 32 and 47.
5
Marketable skills are training, experience, and skill sets required to build a resume. Building a good resume will help in
gaining employment within the corporate, or business world. This training could be in accounting, culinary arts,
medicine, engineering, or any other profession. http://www.ask.com/question/definition-of-marketable-skills Retrieved on
15 March 2014.
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Timur Luchin, American Studies, gr 1

ideology, political economy, policy studies and analysis, comparative politics, international relations,
etc. If these disciplines represent the analytical tools to understand the dynamic of todays everchanging and complex society, then, the history has the important role to supply their content with
events, facts, and personalities, as part of life-world. My view of political issues, controversies and
values are expressions of history development of humanity as a general framework, and evolution of
thinking, as particular direction. History cannot complete substitute the disciplines configured, such
as political theory, political ideology or political economy. These disciplines represent the evolution
of human cognition and adopt a more multi-disciplinary approach, extreme required for
contemporary world and leadership in term of prognostic, analysis, perspective and development. But
only in the specific chronological and spatial limits. In The Poverty of Historicism, philosopher Karl
Raimund Popper explains that there can be no prediction of the course of human history by scientific
or any other rational methods6. However the most reliable weapon with which we can step into the
future is knowledge of history. As, George Orwell said: Who controls the present controls the
past. Who controls the past, controls the future.
Political theory has more to do with the history of political thought and the interpretation of
modern happenings in the context of a classical theoretical framework. Political theory can be only
understood when the historical factors such as age, place and the situation in which it is evolved are
taken into consideration. As the name of this approach is related to history, it emphasizes on the study
of history of every political reality to analyze any situation. Political thinkers such as Machiavelli,
Sabine and W. Dunning believe that politics and history are intricately related and the study of
politics always should have a historical perspective. The idea of an interconnection was formulated
by Frederick Pollocks work entitled: Introduction to the History of the Science of Politics and J.
Seeleys motto: History without Political Science has not fruit; Political Science without History
knows no root.7

Karl Raimund Popper, Mizeria Istoricismului, CEU Press, BIC ALL, 1996.
James Farr, The History of Political Science. In American Journal of Political Science, Vol. 32, No. 4, 1988 p.
http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/2111205?uid=2129&uid=2&uid=70&uid=4&sid=21103795573903
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